


I Did Something Bad

by AlphaDork



Category: Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bandits & Outlaws, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Mutual Pining, Pining, Rivalry, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Smut, Western, kaylor - Freeform, sheriff/outlaw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2020-05-16 17:37:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19322920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaDork/pseuds/AlphaDork
Summary: California, 1875.After fifteen years of being away from her home, Karlie goes back to the small frontier town where she had grown up. She had lost all contacts with her childhood friend Taylor long ago, but something inside of her had never truly stopped hoping that a day they would have met again. But will Taylor feel the same way? So many years have passed, was Taylor even going to be the same giggling and innocent girl she remembered in her childhood memories? If not Karlie was soon going to find it out.In other words western lesbian slow burn with a lot of angst.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! It's been a long time.  
> This have been really busy months for me, aside from my own busy schedule I had a lot of exams and needed to work on my thesis (I just finished University *-*) which led to less and less time to write. I'm sorry for having left "Strings or light" incomplete, I really love that story and I hope one day to go back working on it, but right now modern romance is not really something I want to work on. But instead I'm really really hyped about THIS new story: "I DID SOMETHING BAD"  
> And well if you like angst and the classical friends to enemies to lovers plot you should too! I'm still working on my thesis so expect kind of slow updates but I really hope to be able to do at least a chapter every two weeks. With no further delays, enjoy your read!
> 
> A.

 

 

Taylor hid herself in the vineyard, a drop of sweat sliding down her eyebrow as she sat crouched down on the heels of her feet. Vines grew all around her, towering over her hidden figure as a forest would have.  _Or a city_ , she thought. She had never seen a real city, never known how it felt to see the tall buildings towering over her head. She had seen them only in bleached photos and old postcards: carriages and people filling the streets so much you could barely see the ground. It was something so different and so unreal compared to where she had grown up, there were no cities on the frontier. The buildings, the streets, the enormous bridges, all of it sounded more like a fantasy land than somewhere real. She shook her head, remembering the task ahead. It wasn’t the tall rooftops of a city sending shadows over her body, but the wide leaves of vines, one wrong step, a little crack of a twig under her feet and her position would have been revealed.

The warm rays of the sun run through the reddish foliage over her head hitting the back of her neck like small flames kissing her skin. It was not even two hours past dawn, but growing up in California, just a few miles away from the desert, she was used to that kind of temperatures and didn’t mind the droplets of sweat running down her spine. The girl passed a hand in her hair, moving away from her eyes the blonde locks sticking to her forehead.

Before her, just a span outside from her hiding place, a spacious garden extended over a small hill with an enormous white manor shining in the morning sun at the top of it.

At this time of the day, it almost looked like marble, the rays of the sun hitting it delicately scattering small reflections on its wide glass windows. The entrance of the house was covered, tall white pillars, clearly made to remark the richness of the people living inside the manor, holding up part of the second floor, creating a small covered walkway leading to the main door. There were four windows on the second floor, one of them, directly under the roof and over the mahogany entrance of the house. Taylor let her gaze roam, knowing that that was only the back side of the house, a far more majestic entrance would have met her on the other side of the small hill. But this was her favourite way in, no fences or gates separated the vineyard from the manor’s garden, differently for the other side, where a long and shiny white fence marked the limit in between the small frontier town and the house.

There weren’t many people inside the manor, three servants, four at best if you counted the cook down in the kitchens and of course the landlord and his wife. Nobody was rich enough to afford more servitude in that area, but the family who lived there was by far the wealthier in town, if not in the whole county.

The well-dressed servants were walking back and forward from the kitchen, slowly opening the enormous windows on the front of the house. After all, it was nearly breakfast time, one of the busiest times of the day: there were eggs to be cooked, tables to be set and little girls to dress up in lavish clothes, their mothers too busy in chattering and tattling behind exotic cups of tea to care for that.

Taylor breathed in. She had to act, there wasn’t much time left, soon everyone would have been awake and the peasant coming from the small town would have started working in the vineyard where she was hiding. She closed her blue eyes, filling her lungs with the smell of the loose soil under her feet. It had rained the night before, and the heel of her feet was slowly sinking in the mud as her eyes fixated on the target in front of her, a bunch of red grapes hanging over her head as she stayed hidden.

It was then, when her feet were sinking deeper, ready for the sprint, that a slamming sound froze her. A man had just got out from the broad mahogany door on the right side of the house where the manor gave on the small stables. He was wearing a long cloak, which dangled from his shoulders as a stethoscope shined around its neck. The man was in his thirties, if not younger, and had his chin covered in a trimmed dark blonde beard. He had lighter hair, brushed backwards in a refined style, elegantly glued to his head as a few forgotten locks swayed in the warm autumnal wind. Soon he vanished in the stables, and as soon as he was out of sight, the girl’s gaze moved back to her goal.

In front of her, before the completely exposed part of the garden, there was a little area in the shade, covered by the massive branches of an oak tree. Two small swings hanged from it and not far from them there was a big rock, on which she knew the doctor used to sit while the little girls of the house played outdoors.

Taylor couldn’t see her target, but she knew where to look for it. She crunched down on all fours, slowly moving forwards as she abandoned the coverup of the vineyard. The wet short grass felt cold under her hands and knees, ruining her clothes as she advanced. The big rock nearby the swings was still covering her target, but she had been patient, and she had observed and now she knew exactly where to aim. She slid closer to the rock, counting the beats of her heart as she heard the unsteady breath of her soon to be victim of the other side of it. The girl silently slid one hand to her side, ready to grab the weapon for her ambush.

As she finally crawled behind the rock, resting her back against it and reaching for her gun, the girl closed her vivid blue eyes. Her muscles were tensed by the excitement, she knew what she had to do.

The sound of another person on the other side of the boulder was almost imperceptible, but not for her. She could hear everything, from the little girl’s barefoot feet tapping on the ground, to her irregular breath and her little heartbeats. Taylor relaxed her shoulders, adrenaline starting to pump through her body as the hand nearby her pelvis tightened its hold.

It was the perfect time.

She rested her free hand on the rock, using it as leverage and she pushed herself on the other side of it in a light-footed jump. Her victim was now in front of her, surprised by her sudden appearance, her small back still rested against the boulder as her assassin stood in front of her.

BANG!

The little girl fell to the ground without any sound. Not a scream, not a word, her eyes remaining open as she slid to the ground, fixated on the auburn foliage of the tree above them. Her small pink lips were still slightly opened as if she was about to say something, something she would have never the chance to put into words. Her bright eyes were still shining in infinite shades of green, remembering Taylor of that strange tree her father had once brought home for Christmas when she was a kid, a dark green almost magnetic to her gaze.

Taylor kneeled to her side, the little girl was beautiful. Differently, from hers, the children golden hair was loose and now laid on the ground as a sort of halo surrounding the girl’s head. Her locks were lightly darker than hers, nearly chestnut brown at the top of the girl’s head, becoming pure gold only on the tips. But what more got Taylor’s attention were the girl pink lips, so soft, so innocent.

“Karlie?” she asked, poking the girl in her forehead with the same finger she had used as a gun. No reply, the green-eyed beauty stayed still, her eyes still fixated into the nothingness.

“Karlie, are you-”

“AHHHH!” with a scream the girl threw herself at Taylor, easily pinning her to the ground. Karlie was a couple of years younger than Taylor was and even a few inches shorter than her, but the little girl was way stronger. While Taylor passed her days playing with dolls and entertaining tea parties with her imaginary friends, the other girl worked in the stables with her father, carrying heavy saddles and exercising her arms scarping the horses’ thick fur. Taylor couldn’t do anything to push away the nine-year-old now smirking down at her.

“You can’t do that, you’re dead!” whined the older child, trying to free her little wrist from Karlie’s hold.

“I’m a ghost. I came back to have my revenge.” joked Karlie, doing what she probably believed what a scary face sticking her tongue out at Taylor.

“Ghost can’t touch people.” snorted the taller blonde, her elaborate braid now half loose and filled with dead auburn leaves.

Karlie replied with a mischievous smile, lowering down on her and pressing her nose against the one of the other children.

“Ghosts can’t touch uh?” she laughed.

“You’re crushing me!” complained Taylor, trying to wiggle herself out from the blonde's weight.

“I’m not hurting you.” replied the shorter girl, rolling her eyes, but at the same time removing some of her weight. She would have never hurt her best friend.

“You shoot me.” also reminded her Karlie raising her brow.

“It’s only honourable that I get my revenge.” she explained, clearly convinced by her reasoning.

“You were an outlaw! I had to shoot you!” exclaimed Taylor out of breath.

“I am the sheriff.” she added with an extremely serious face, pointing to the little painted star pinned to her elegant white lace dress. “The sheriff always has to shoot the outlaw.”

“Well, I’m Calamity Larson! The greatest bandit of all the west and you can’t shoot me!” proclaimed Karlie, her green eyes shining with mischief as she jumped on her feet, pointing her finger towards Taylor as the girl had done with her only minutes before.

“You can’t shoot ME!” retorted the older girl.

“You’re already dead!” she fussed crossing her arms as she sat up.

“I won.” she also added, looking up at the younger girl. “That’s how the game works.”

Karlie rolled her eyes. Sometimes it felt as Taylor was the younger one between the two of them, still using pouting and crying to get things her way, but she loved her the same.

Even like that, as she looked up at her with her arms crossed and her eyes squinted, the small child looked like a little angel to Karlie. Her blonde curly hair, half braided and half messy and covered in leaves, fell down her shoulder in golden waves covering the back of her white little dress and framing her face. Her baby-blue eyes shined as a clear summer sky and her small pink lips kept pouting, looking up at her best friend.

“You always win.” breathed out Karlie as she offered a hand to her friend. Maybe sometimes she got a little grumpy or a little bratty, but she was also funny, sweet and she always made her smile. She wouldn’t have changed that blonde rascal for anyone else.

Taylor accepted Karlie’s hand, lifting herself back on her feet a she looked down at her ruined dress. While the dust was easy to remove, she couldn’t do much for the green stains and the mud that had got attached to it while she had crawled through the vineyard. Her mother wouldn’t have been pleased if she had seen her in that state. The little girl dress wasn’t cheap. Made entirely in lace and tulle with a large skirt that made her look like a little meringue, it had been sent to her family from England.

Karlie instead was wearing a simple pair of brown trousers that left her knees and calves exposed and a large white shirt stained with dirt. The girl was also barefoot, her small feet covered in dirt.

“Your mom is not going to be happy.” reasoned Karlie slowly shaking her little head as, standing on her tiptoes, she reached to remove the brownish oak leaves from her friend’s curls.

“It’s tea day.” replied Taylor raising her shoulders.

Karlie nodded to that. Tea day was the most important day of the week for Miss Swift. All the rich ladies in town got invited to it, and everything had to be impeccable, from the hospitality, to the flavour of the tea, to every little single detail. You wouldn’t want the other ladies to talk behind your back after all. But that would also mean that Taylor’s mother wouldn’t have much time for her daughter that day, as long as the little girl would have stayed out from her gaze, they wouldn’t have had any problems. At least till late afternoon, when all the posh ladies would have got back to their homes and their husbands with all the new juicy gossip.

“Is Elinor coming too?” asked suddenly Karlie.

“Will we have to play with her again?”

The younger girl looked down at her feet, obviously uncomfortable.

“No.” replied Taylor, climbing onto the rock to sit on top of it.

“She didn’t want to come after the last time.”

Karlie lowered her head feeling guilty. It was her fault if Taylor got into trouble, and it was her fault if the other kid no longer wanted to play with them.

“I’m sorry.” she whimpered, sitting on the grass nearby Taylor’s feet.

“It’s not your fault.” reassured her the twelve-year-old giving her a warm smile.

I truly wasn’t Karlie’s fault. It all had happened a few weeks before, when for the first time Miss Benson had brought her daughter Elinor to tea day, hoping for her and Taylor to become friends. Taylor had been awake all night, excited at the thought of meeting someone else her age. Till then Karlie had been her only friend. There weren’t many kids in the small town of Grace State and most of them were way to younger than she was for her to play with. Even Karlie was younger than her, but they had been best friends since always, and she would have never changed Karlie for anyone, but that said, the idea of playing in three sounded like a lot of fun to the young lady. Taylor had already planned how the three of them could have played at being a family, she would have been the mom and Karlie, since she was stronger, would have been her husband, their new friend was going to be their baby, she had even put out her favourite dress for the awaited encounter. The following day, when Elinor had finally arrived, Taylor couldn’t have been happier, the girl was only a year older than she was, with long black hair and a bang that ended just above her ice-cold eyes. During the morning they had played in Taylor’s room, pretending to be grown up ladies and serving tea to each-other as Taylor showed her new friend all her toys and puppets. In the afternoon, when Karlie finished her shift with her father, Taylor brought Elinor to meet her. There was when everything had started falling apart.

As soon as Karlie reached them, Elinor had immediately started to make fun of her, joking about her messy hair, insulting her working clothes covered in dirt and above all refusing to play with a  _servant’s daughter_. Karlie was the only child of the Swift family stable man, and when she wasn’t playing with Taylor she had work to do, mostly in the stables but also in Taylor’s father’s vineyard which explained the stains on her clothes.

Taylor had tried to explain that to Elinor, that working in the vineyard was also a really important job. Those vines were the only crop growing in miles, but the thirteen-year-old didn’t seem too impressed by it.

Karlie had started to cry, silent tears running down her cheeks as she tried to hide the stains of mud on her clothes with her little hands. Taylor had never felt anything similar to the rage that had been running through her at that moment. In the span of a second, she had jumped at Elinor, pushing the little snob down to the ground and pinning her under her body as she shouted at her.

She remembered how her fists had trembled, fire in her eyes as flashes of Karlie’s tears had run through her mind. Taylor hadn’t even hit her, quickly regaining control over herself, but nevertheless, the older girl had run away screaming for her mother, her precious pink dress covered in dirt. Taylor had stayed, already knowing that a punishment would have come, and had sat next to Karlie by their swings. She was afraid of her mother reaction, not only a crying girl would have interrupted her tea party but her own actions would have embarrassed her in front of her friends, and Taylor knew well how that would have set her mother anger, but, for Karlie, she was ready for that kind of consequences.

“I’m sorry that she said those things about you.” she had said, sitting by the younger child’s side.

Karlie nodded. Tears no longer streaming down her face, but Taylor could see her watery eyes fighting to keep the salty drops back.

“You’re not a servant’s daughter.” tired the taller girl, blowing away a curly lock of hair from her mouth.

“I am Taylor. You know that.” replied Karlie sniffing. The little girl dried her eyes with the back of her forearm, lifting her head to look into Taylor’s blue eyes.

“I’m just a servant. I’m not like her, or like you. I don’t even know writing or reading or those...” the little girl felt at loss of words.

“Those things you, rich people do. I don’t know which piece of silverware goes on the right or on the left. I don’t know anything.” grumbled the girl, toying with a little rock in her hands before throwing it in the grass.

“You’ll grow tired of me.” she whispered.

“I’d never do that.” replied quickly Taylor.

“Never.”

Karlie turned to her friend, staring in her bright blue watery eyes.

They truly looked like a clear blue sky.

Even if she was the younger one, she knew that she was way more mature than Taylor was. She had lost her mother when she was only three, and she had grown up with her father, spending more much time working than she did playing. She could see in Taylor’s eyes that she was speaking the truth, her own innocent and naïve truth. But she was a child too, and as she looked in her best friend eyes, she too felt like for once she would have soaked in that ingenuousness.

“We’ll always be there for each other, right?” she had asked, silencing the voices in her head, her fears of not being enough for that little curly angel who graces her days with her shiny smiles and her delighting giggles.

Taylor had nodded, giving a bright big smile before taking her hand and standing up.

“Race in the vineyard?” she had asked, her watery eyes already turning mischievous.

Karlie had jumped on her feet, grinning.

“Bite my dust!”

The memory faded, and Taylor looked at the girl seated at her feet, Karlie’s face lowered as she still felt the weight of having put Taylor in trouble with her mother. The girl slid down from the rock she was seated on, sitting at Karlie’s side as rays of morning sun ran through the foliage over them reaching their heads. The temperatures were still rising, drying the wet grass under their small hands.

Taylor put a hand on Karlie’s shoulder, tilting her head to the side so she could meet she child saddened gaze.

“We don’t need Elinor.” spoke Taylor.

“It’s you and me, we don’t need anyone else.” she continued, squeezing Karlie’s shoulder.

Karlie looked up at the other girl, something flattering lower in her chest as the Taylor spoke those words.

“To hell those prissy girls all tulle and tea parties!” continued boldly the blonde, clearly feeling all grown up and brave for her use of words.

“I’m still way richer than she is anyway.” she added, grinning.

Karlie broke out laughing, finally forgetting the tears forming in her eyes.

“Where did you hear that phrase?” she chuckled in between deep laughs.

“My mother.” admitted the other girl, passing a hand through her messy curly hair before she joined her friend’s laugh.

“Yeah, sounded like her.” commented Karlie still chuckling as she rested her head against Taylor’s chest.

They both kept giggling. Karlie knew Taylor, and she knew how badly the girl couldn’t wait to be an adult, to do that chatting and gossip as her mother did. How hard the little girl tried to speak like grown up, pretending to be the Miss a day she would have been was only a small part of it. The younger girl left out a deep breath, feeling Taylor’s heartbeat behind her head. A day Taylor would really have been that woman she wished to be. Would she have become one of those elegant rich girls like the ones invited at Taylor’s mom tea parties? She knew that deep down that was Taylor’s dream. To be the richest woman in the county: a good reputation, fancy clothes, elegant morning teas with her friends.

 _Friends like Elinor._  She thought.

_Not dirty servants coming from the stables._

Something in her heart felt like breaking. Taylor would have grown up, would have need to keep a good reputation to her name… would have married. Something itched in Karlie’s throat at that thought, but she quickly shook it away, too young to realise what it could have meant.

The thought of Taylor all grown up, in those heavy gowns and elegant braids, gave her a strange feeling.

For a moment she kept silent, holding back her thoughts as she tried to relax in the distant sounds of the people in town and the wind running through the leaves above them, but slowly her fear started to bite her mind.

“Last week you told me that you would have never grown tired of me.” she breathed out, Taylor’s heartbeat still ringing in her ears.

“But what… what about when we’ll grow up?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper.

You’ll be the lady of the house, and I’ll be…” Karlie turned her head to the side, locking her eyes with Taylor blue gaze.

“I’ll just be the stable girl.”

“You’ll never be just the stable girl.” replied Taylor and for once Karlie thought she was seeing the real mature part of the girl, the woman she was one day going to be.

“You are my family Karlie. And nothing, nor what other people say nor time, are ever going to change that.” Taylor squeezed her hand, their eyes still locked together as her face grew closer to the one of the younger girl.

Karlie felt her heart jump to her throat, seconds slowing down as Taylor's face got closer and closer to hers, her curly blonde hair invading her view.

It was as her lungs and ears had stopped working. She was could no longer feel the wind running through the nearby vineyard, or the crows cracking on the oak’s branches, there was only Taylor, only her and her soft pink lips so close to hers.

She could feel her face growing red as her heart kept beating in her throat almost suffocating her.

_Just an inch closer._

Taylor lips landed on her cheek without making a sound, her blue eyes closed.

Karlie closed her eyes too, her heart beating out of control as she savoured the moment.

As quickly as they came Taylor’s lips were gone and so was the girl who had jumped up on her feet and was back being her childhood self.

“I’m going to say hi to daddy before he goes to work, want to come?”

Karlie looked up to the shorter girl, her knees still trembling for the chaste kiss.

“Ehm… I… work, yes of course.” she mumbled helping herself up with her hands to stand.

Taylor raised a brow clearly confused by the shorter girl’s reply.

“I too have to go to the stables to get to work.” blurted out Karlie in one breath, feeling flustered.

Taylor smiled, offering her hand to the girl. Karlie took it, her red cheeks already turning to their natural golden colour as she squeezed her friend’s hand.

They ran through the garden as fast as their little legs let them, shrubs of tall grass sometimes reaching their knees and slowing them down. For the time they reached the stables they were both out of breath.

Karlie had left her boots nearby a barrel filled with water for the horses, once she located them, she quickly put them on, shaking her muddy feet before sliding them into the footwear. Taylor tried to arrange her hair, braiding them at the best that she could behind her head. Once they were both scrubbed up, they ran inside the stable.

“I’m sorry to tell you this so suddenly, but it’s a great chance for me and for Karlie. We both love working for you Mr Swift, but I could give her a better life there. It’s what my wife would have wanted.” the man who was talking had long brown hair that reached his shoulders and a beard of a much lighter shade, similar to Karlie’s hair.

“I totally understand.” replied the doctor, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I would do the same for my family.” he continued, passing a hand through his silk blonde hair, the stethoscope still shining around his neck.

“I’m just thinking about the girls it will be hard for them to…” the man got interrupted by the two kids entering the stable.

“What are you talking about?” asked immediately Taylor, her brawn raised. The little girl was still too naïve to truly understand the meaning of those words, to even think that such a short conversation could have changed her life. But if the older girl hadn’t fully realised what was going on Karlie did.

“Where are we going?” she asked directly to her father, a small amount of anger already making its way in her tone.

“Karlie, grown-ups are speaking.” immediately lectured her the stable man.

Karlie closed her fists.

“I’m not going anywhere.” she said, quickly taking a step forward, her arm brushing against the older girl one.

“Uncle Drake as a new work in Pennsylvania. They’ve found a way to dig oil from one of their wells and a big name, a professor, told them they can sell it now. It’s going to change our lives little one.” tried to explain the man, looking at his daughter.

Karlie couldn’t understand what he was saying, didn’t know where this so-called Pennsylvania was, or why someone would dig olive oil from a well, but whatever it meant she knew that if she would have gone, she would have never seen Taylor again.

She turned away from her father, leaving a confused Taylor behind her back.

“Mr Swift, I could work for you. I can have my father’s job if he goes. I’m… I’m strong enough! Mr Swift, I swear, I can do it.” she tired already feeling her eyes watering.

“Please don’t send me away.”

Karlie took a step towards the blonde man. She could feel her father eyes on her, she didn’t know what he was feeling, she didn’t know if he would have been hurt by her words, or angry, but for once she didn’t care.

“This is my home.” she continued, whispering.

_She’s my home._

Mr Swift gave her a warm smile, crunching down on his knees to so that their eyes were at the same height.

“Karlie, I know that you would be an incredible stable girl and that you would take good care of the horses. I know that believe me.” he started, putting a hand on the little girl’s shoulder.

“But your father needs you. He’s going to be alone, far away from his home too. He will need his little girl by his side.”

Karlie sniffed, turning to her father and meeting his brown watery eyes.

“I…” Karlie's voice broke.

She loved her father, he was the only family she ever had, the only family she could remember. Her mother was nothing by a sweet memory, a fading face and a faint smell of oranges.

 _“You’re my family Karlie.”_  the little girl met the other children’s blue eyes.

Taylor knew.

She had understood, and a single tear was sliding down her pinked cheek, her head slowly shaking together with her messy curls.

“You know what.” chimed in the blonde man at Karlie’s side.

“I’ll keep a job for you.”  he continued. “Much more important one than a common stable girl.”

“Your father told me that there’s a school where you are going, you’ll learn how to read and write, we need smart girls like that you know.”

Karlie looked down at her hands. She had always dreamed of that, of learning and being able to read and write as the rich children did, as Taylor did, but she had never thought her dream would have costed her, her best friend.

“But…” the girl looked again at her friend, her eyes desperately praying for her to stay, to fight.

“I can’t leave her alone.” she whispered back to the girl’s father.

“I’ll keep an eye on her for you.”

“I promise.” added immediately the man, squeezing the nine-year-old shoulder as they both looked at Taylor.

Karlie felt her mouth dry. She knew that there wasn’t a choice to be made. She was just a child and even if she would have fought, even if she would have shouted at everyone at the top of her lungs, nothing would have changed. She couldn’t fully understand what was going to happen, but she knew that she was trying to fight things way bigger than she was.

She nodded, giving up.

“No!” Taylor sobbed, shaking her head as she started crying.

“I…” Karlie tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come.

Taylor sobbed, tears running down her cheeks as she trembled.

“Sweetheart, please.” tired the girl’s father but Taylor had already run out from the stables.

Karlie stood still. Her sight clouded by the tears she was holding back.

“You should talk to her after work.” said Mr Swift as he patted her back and stood back on his feet.

“I have many stops today.” continued the man turning towards Karlie’s father.

“I’ll be back after lunch. Would you please inform my wife?”

“Of course, Mr Swift.” replied the man, his eyes still glued onto his daughter.

“You’re doing what’s best for her, Kurt.” the man put a hand on the stable man’s shoulder, giving him a small smile, before tying his suitcase to his horse’s saddle.

“She will get it.” he concluded looking towards Karlie before spurring his horse out of the stables.

As the man vanished out of the wooden door Karlie turned towards her father, her eyes no longer watery, just filled with plain sadness.

“When are we leaving?”

#

Karlie walked towards her friend, the tiredness of a long day of work weighing on her shoulders. She had already known where to find Taylor. She always knew how to find her.

The small girl was seated on one on the swings, her little legs moving back and forward as a weak autumnal wind ran through her loose hair. They looked like gold in the orange light of the sunset, its rays almost dancing with the blonde curls. Even Taylor’s skin was shining, and for the blink of an eye, Karlie could have almost thought that it was the little girl the real source of light in front of her, not the dying sun in the west.

As she finally crossed the garden Karlie rested her back onto the oak tree, looking at the older girl.

“You let your hair loose. Isn’t your mother going to scold you for that?” she said, awkwardly trying to break the silence as the wind brought to her nose the smell of leaves, mud and the fruity aroma of the vines growing before the two of them: the smell of home.

Taylor didn’t reply. She kept swinging in the direction of the vineyard, the golden sun reflecting on her face turning her blue eyes into two dark lakes.

“Taylor?”

The girl stopped moving, abruptly getting down from the swing and almost hitting Karlie with it as she walked into the thick yard of grapes, disappearing into it.

Karlie followed the older girl, biting onto her own lips.

She had been holding back her tears all afternoon, diving herself into work to stop herself from thinking.

It hadn’t been easy.

The knowledge that everything she did was a “last time” had been hunting her all day. Every gaze at the white manor, every horse she had given a treat to, the smells around her, everything felt different. Because it was different. Or at least it would have been the following day, when all of that would have become nothing but a memory.

_Fading faces and smell of vines._

But more than that, there was one last thing that she needed to do that made her heart cry with pain, and the time to do it had come.

She could see Taylor walking before her in between the grapes, slowly advancing in the vineyard as the reddish foliage around them start covering both of their blonde heads. She walked faster, trying to reach the little girl as the changing shades of the afternoon turned the sky above them from light blue to orange, turning the world around them in and hissing fire of auburn reflections.

“Taylor.” she tried again calling the girl who instead started running.

Karlie could hear sobbing, her teeth gritted together as she held back her own tears. Leaves were hitting her face, stringing her as fresh mud entered her boots. She was tired, her feet kept stumbling in the uneven ground, but nevertheless, she fastened her pace.

She had to reach her. She had to hold her and pretend she could have done it for the rest of their lives.

Finally, nearly when they had reached the centre of the vineyard, and darkness had started creeping in on them she reached the older girl, nearly tripping both of them over as she caught Taylor in her arms.

“Let me go!” screamed the older girl, hitting Karlie’s chest with her little fist.

“No, I won’t!” the younger girl tightened her arms around Taylor’s midsection, turning her so that she could face her.

“Please, stop.” she continued sobbing out, tears running down her own flushed cheeks.

“No! I’m not going to stop! I heard the cook speak with your father today,” spoke Taylor, lowering her voice.

“You’re going away with tomorrow’s train.” she cried out, her voice broken.

Taylor’s eyes met Karlie’s, a silent prayer that the younger girl would have denied her words, but Karlie nodded, no longer hiding the tears running down her eyes.

“I don’t want to go.” she tired, but Taylor knew well as her that it wasn’t going to change anything.

“I…” the younger girl took in a deep breath, trying to find the words she had been looking for all day.

“No. I will not let you…” Taylor raised her head lightly shaking it as her voice turned into a whisper.

“I will not let you say goodbye.” she sobbed meeting the girl’s deep green eyes.

“Please, don’t make me say goodbye.” she continued lowering her head so she could rest it on Karlie’s shoulder, her fists closing onto the girl’s shirt.

Karlie closed her eyes, sinking her face in the untamed blonde curls of her friend. Again, she knew that it wasn’t the childish part of Taylor speaking, there was maturity in her voice, a different kind of pain she knew the little girl had never felt before. This wasn’t a children plea or one of the girl’s tantrums: this was the woman Taylor would have grown up to be, asking her to not leave her.

But again, they were just children.

“We will still be best friends.” promised Karlie, taking Taylor’s small hand in her own. “We will always be.”

“I’ll write to you.” she started, her hands rising to Taylor’s cheeks so that she could hold the girl’s face.

“I’ll learn how to, and I’ll send you letters.” continued the blonde.

In the meantime, the sun had disappeared from the horizon and darkness was raising around them. The sky above their heads was of a fading lilac colour, slowly turning to dark blue as stars started appearing in it. One by one, as fireflies turning up in the fields during summer.

Karlie noticed this, looking around the vineyard as it started disappearing around them, turning the stars reflections in Taylor’s blue eyes the only source of light around them.

“I’ll come back for you.” she whispered in the darkness, no sound around them apart from their interwind breath and the repeating sound of the crickets in the grass by their feet.

“Promise me.” whispered back the older girl, their faces inches apart as she leaned forward.

 _I promise_ thought Karlie, her eyes closing as darkness surrounded them completely.


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is going to be shorter than my usual updates, but with having to work on my thesis during this weeks it's either like this or I'd update once a month. I hope you're ok with shorter chapters, let me know! Enjoy!

A sudden stop of the train woke her up from her slumber, her head hitting the back of her seat as her eyes started to slowly flatter in the blinding light of the morning.

The woman started to slowly regain her consciousness, tilting her head to the side as she noticed the movements around her. People were getting out of the train, talking and scrambling with their luggage as they tried to cross the narrow passage between a seat and another. Karlie ran a hand over her mouth, quickly checking that she hadn’t been drooling during her nap. Her head still felt heavy from the sleepiness and she would feel her eyes still fighting against the greyish light of the morning hitting her face. Soon the doors were closed, and the train started moving towards the next station, slowly and rhythmically trembling over the rail beneath it.

Karlie tried to move in a more comfortable position. She had been sleeping with her forehead rested on the window, her body unnaturally turned to the opposite side and now crossed by cramps. She stretched her neck, tilting her head as she tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her spine and shoulders, straightening her back against the seat.

She hated trains, and she hated the constant vibration of the carriage beneath her. Nausea had been running up her throat since she had got in her seat and was quickly coming back to her now, that she had woke up from her slumber.

At least she had been in peace for a couple of hours.

The woman didn’t even know for how long she had slept. The last thing she remembered was the sun setting over a river in Colorado, the blue skies sprinkled with violet clouds over the peeling green paint of the train. But now the light was already creeping back into the sky from east, lighting up the endless green fields with feeble rays of almost white sunshine. A light layer of fog covered the grass making the whole scene look like a vanishing memory emerging from a dream.

Karlie let out a deep breath, running a hand through her messy short hair as she tried to relax her sore back muscles. She had given up keeping her hair in her usual bun hours ago when after uncomfortable moments of having it pressed into her skull against the seat headrest, she had opted for letting her hair loose. Having her blonde locks falling over her neck had done nothing but worsen the heat she had been feeling and had made several drops of sweat ran down to her shoulders before the sun had disappeared. Karlie extended her legs, trying to stretch them, or at least giving them a break for the soaring position they were in the small space between her seat and the one in front of her. There a redhead woman was sleeping looking peaceful, a straw hat covering part of her face as she held little blonde kid under her protective arm. It was the tenth person that Karlie had as a travel partner in the last forty-eight hours, and probably she was not going to be the last. Most of the people around her had got in and out of the train in a matter of hours, she had been there for more than two days.

Of course, she had done breaks. Even after the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad had been linked there weren’t many trains going from Pennsylvania to California in one go, or people crazy enough to try it. She had spent a night in a Chicago hostel and another in a village somewhere in between there and Colorado, a town so small and abandoned that, tired as she was, she hadn’t even found out in which state she had been. The woman had also made several stops in between a train and another, trying to cease the motion sickness hunting her during the awake hours.

But nevertheless, she was a wreak.

Or at least she felt like it.

Her legs felt sore for all the hours of sitting still, while the rest of her body was feeling all of her tiredness and the weight of days of travel. Her head was heavy with exhaustion and boredom while her nausea kept raging.

Karlie turned towards the window on her left, searching for something distracting in the green fields running before her eyes. She had forgotten how wild and untamed the west still was, how endless its landscape felt, it had nothing in common with the busy oil fields where her father had worked when she was a child or the busy streets of Philadelphia where she had been sent to study during the civil war. With her father on the frontline, her old uncle had preferred sending her to the capital then looking after a twelve-year-old by himself, probably saving her life by doing so. Not even a week later after she had been sent away, her uncle got killed in an ambush by the Confederate Army who wanted to take control of the oil well. If she had still been there, she probably would have ended up dead the same as him.

But instead, she had spent her teen years in Philadelphia, going on with her studies thanks to her uncle’s inheritance. It was not common for women to go that far with their studies, but as the oil well got back under the northern control and her father was still fighting in the south, all the money went directly to her, an no kind of private teacher refused the amount of pay she could offer. She had learned history, French, Latin and basic maths and geometry, more than once stunning with her knowledge her male friends who attended university.

_A long road since I was that little stable girl running in these fields._

Thought Karlie to herself as her eyes kept scanning the never-ending greenness out of the train’s window.

When her father had returned from the war, she had given the propriety of the well back in his hands, as she continued to help him as his vice. After all those years she had got quite good at overseeing her uncle’s company, but deep down she knew that it wasn’t her call. Her dreams where filled with books and literature, clear European skies and magnificent architectures she had only seen on postcards: the Eiffel tour, the Colosseum, churches and castles so ancient that she could not even imagine the times when they had been built.

But now, with her father gone, and her company just waiting to be sold to the best bidder -and she had to admit, the offers had been quite generous- for some reasons, she wasn’t sailing to the land of her dreams. Instead, she was dying of motion sickness on a nearly claustrophobic carriage, crossing the entire country in a metal box on wheels in the heat of the southern summer.

_I must be crazy._

The woman bit on her lip, resting her head onto the train’s window.

Why was she there? What was keeping her from crossing the sea and follow her dreams?

She had stayed with her father until he had needed her, staying by his side as he peacefully died in his sleep. He had always known that she would have sold the company after he would have been gone, he knew that, and he was okay with it. The man knew that it wasn’t the life his daughter wanted. Karlie folded her fists as she thought of his last words “Go. Fall in love with this life of yours.” The memory stung her eyes with tears, tears that she was quick to shake way. He had been a good man and had a good life, he died as he lived, with a smile on his lips and a spark in his eyes. The woman was committed to living by his last words, travel, discover the world, fall in love with life. So, what was keeping her on this side of the ocean? What she thought she was going to find or discover in a forgotten town on the limit of the civilized world?

Yes, it had once been her home, she had good memories there: the white manor on the hill, the fields where she had learned how to ride a horse, the small stables where she had worked with her father, but as she said, those were just memories. What she could have truly missed from that life? Working her ass off from dawn to sunset? The pain in her sore muscles, as she lifted hay bales twice her weight? She had left that place as nothing but a scrubby stable girl, why would she want to get back to that life?

She looked down at her clothes, the unstained white shirt with its golden cufflinks and the tailor-made dark blue waistcoat covering it. The shirt’s collar was loose around her neck as she had opened a few buttons to escape the heat but was still considerably elegant.

When she had left Grace State, she could have never even imagined returning to it with such lavishing clothes. Actually, she had never planned to return at all, or at least not in the last couple of years.

As a child, she had made thousands of plans about going back, about running away in the night and stealing one of her uncle’s horses. She would have crossed the country on her own, returning home. When she was ten, it had sounded like a good plan. But as she grew up, the more vanishing became her memories of the place she had once called home, the more she found herself thinking less of those crazy plans.

The woman smoothed a hand over her velvet blue trousers, turning her head away from the window and the view outside.

Truly, what was she doing there?

Fifteen years had passed, her life had irremediably changed, and it had changed for the better. Of course, she had loved her childhood, the freedom of the west, the fields, the sticky mud of the vineyard beneath her feet, the giggling and the board leaves lashing her face and arms as she ran. But she was no longer that child, she had grown up.

_What are you going to do? Throw your shoes away and run naked in the vineyard?_

Karlie smiled at the thought, shaking her head.

_I’m probably a lost cause._

There was no real reason for her to go back to California. No rational reason, at least.

_But you promised._

Karlie could feel her heart losing a beat at that thought.

_No, we’re not going down that road again._

The woman felt a shiver running down her spine, feeling a sensation of suffocation creeping up her neck.

_It must be the heat._

The twenty-four-year-old ran a hand through her blonde hair, she really wasn’t used to letting it loose. They barely reached her shoulders, but she was so used to her bun, that it still felt almost unnatural to have them framing her face.

Karlie moved the golden locks away from her neck, trying to have some air, but even like that the strange sensation didn’t seem to go away, as her gaze kept slipping to the leather case beneath her legs.

_If it doesn’t matter, why do you bring them everywhere?_

Karlie grumbled to herself, finally giving up the inner battle in her mind. She took a deep giving one last glance at the woman sleeping in front of her before picking up the leather case.

Most of her clothes were in her other bag, the one she had left in the luggage carriage at the end of the train, but she also had a couple of spare shirts and a second pair of trousers there with her. But that wasn’t what she was looking for.

Karlie lifted the clothes, revealing a pack of documents about the oil well, some data on the last drills and offers she had received before leaving the city, and below that, a bundle of letters kept together with a string of twine.

The paper was starting to turn yellow, ruined from the humidity and that onetime Karlie had by mistake poured a glass of water over them.

Also, it had been more than twelve years since the last letter had arrived.

The blonde woman opened the tight knot that kept the letters together, delicately pulling at the string as if it could have crumbled beneath her fingers. Soon the letters were freed, and the girl placed them over her lap. There were at least a hundred pages before her, and just by looking at the delicate handwriting the woman could fell her lower stomach flatter. Karlie let out a small breath, a little smile taking over her lips as she started to read.

_09/18/1860_

_Dear friend…_

_I miss you dearly, days are not the same without you and even if it’s just a couple of weeks it’s so strange knowing you will not come back. Today I attended tea-time with my mother, it was nice to be treated like a grown-up, they all chatted with me about the gossip happening down in town and mom brushed my hair in nice braids. It was fun, but I would have much rather play in the fields with you. It rained yesterday and the street leading up the hill had turned in a small river. I had asked Mr Marles daughter Sophie to play with me, but she said that’s not what little girls should do. I know you would have loved it. How’s Pennsylvania? I’ve been reading on father’s books that it’s a lot colder than here and that there’s snow even below the mountains. I want to hear all about it, I look forward to hearing from you,_

_love Taylor._

Karlie ran a finger over the old ink, her free hand tightening its grip on the seat beneath her, knuckles turning white.

She still remembered receiving that letter, how fast she had run through the oil farm to reach her father and uncle so that they could read it to her. She had been attending school for a month or two at the time, but even if she had started learning how to read, she still didn’t trust herself enough with something so important to her.

Karlie looked through the other letters in her hands, the more she advanced the longer the letters becoming, getting even three, four pages long. Even Taylor’s handwriting changed with the time, getting clearer and clearer as the letters became more elegant and with softer curves. At the top of the pages, she could see the years passing by, time flowing beneath her hands, till she reached the last letter.

_06/05/1863_

_Dear Karlie,_

_I was delighted to receive your letter it had been too long since the last one. I’m truly overjoyed to hear that you have moved to Philadelphia, I’m certain that your life would be wondrous there. I’ll be pleased if in your next reply you’ll send a postcard together with your letter. As you know I never saw a city and I’m frankly curious to see one, even if it’s just through drawings. Who knows, maybe one day I could visit you, once this war will come to an end. It hadn’t reached Grace Town, and I don’t think it ever will, but is so sad to see so many fathers, so many brothers leave us for the unknown. I haven’t heard my father in months… I hope Philadelphia will be safe for you, I know you know how too look out for yourself but be careful my friend. When my father went my mother cried for days, I didn’t, he told me to be strong and so I will. Sometimes I feel like we shouldn’t be talking, with our fathers on opposite sides of this bloodshed. But I’d lie to myself if I told you I could ever do that. I often find myself wondering about us, about you, on who you’ve have become if I would even recognise you. I think I would. I miss you, Karls._

_With all my heart,_

_Taylor Alison Swift_

That was the last letter Karlie had ever received from her childhood friend. Of course, she had replied, she had replied many times, always wondering if the previous letters had gone lost. She sent the photos Taylor had asked, and so many postcards that the girl could have covered the walls of her room with them.

But years started to pass, and Taylor never replied.

 _We were at war._ Said Karlie to herself, running her digit over the other girl’s signature. Maybe Taylor’s letters had gone lost, and so did hers, and once the years of war had passed, they had both forgot about each other.

_I didn’t._

Maybe the sense of guilt of speaking with her, with someone who politically should have been an enemy had been too much for the teenage girl.

Karlie bit her lip, closing the envelope in her lap.

_Should have I tried harder?_

Yes, after two whole years of no replies she had stopped sending letters to the older girl, but she had never forgotten about her. A small part of her mind, a little box of her thoughts, day after day had always been reserved to Taylor. Part of it had been memories: their moments together, her giggles, how the sun shined in her curly blonde locks of the girl, over parts of her thoughts had been attempts at imagining how the girl could have become. How breath-taking she would have been during her teen years, the blonde locks running down her shoulders, that pretty pout she always gave her when they played together, her bright blue gaze meeting hers.

_She was probably beautiful._

The woman caught herself thinking, quickly shaking the thought away. She had long ago accepted her predilection for women -well more than a predilection actually- and she had her range of experiences in Philadelphia, but thirsting over the made-up grown-up reflection of her childhood friend wasn’t something she would let herself indulge into.

Was Taylor her first love? Maybe. But they were just children and she was not going to think that over more than necessary. It had been twelve years since the last time she heard from the girl, and fifteen since she had last saw her. They were basically strangers.

_So why am I here?_

Karlie put away her letters, biting on her lower lip as she tried to dig those thoughts away. Memories of vineyards and roaring flaming sunsets fluttered through her mind as dark blue eyes filled with the light of the stars called sweetly her name.

“Three more hours to the last stop gentlemen!” called a man in a dark uniform from the opposite side of her carriage.

_I'm coming for you, I promised._

 


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I know it has been months and I'm so sorry for having you wait for so long! I got a publishing offer for a political essay I had been writing so I hope you can understand how that's been my number one priority in the last few months. But now it finally looks like I might have enough time to get back on this project sooo... hope you enjoy!

The air in her lungs felt as heavy as the damp clothes sticking to her skin, the blanket above her strangling her body as she fought against it. Her left hand had turned into a fist, her nails digging in the soft skin of her palm as her other hand scratched through the wrinkles of her mattress. A part of her knew that she was dreaming, but even if she could already smell the scent of pine trees and sweat surrounding her, she kept fighting, the air in her lungs running short minute by minute.

Cold droplets of sweat were running down her forehead and chest, making her shiver as goosebumps appeared all over her arms. Muttered words were trying to escape her mouth, but as air wouldn’t to come in, her screams didn’t seem able to get out, dying in between her lips.

A burning sensation kept growing over her body, flames dancing over her skin as angry kisses and rough hands. Her throat felt sore as her chest unevenly jerked up and down in search of fresh air. Her mind was losing its fight within itself, slowly slipping back into unconsciousness. Dark shadows seemed to grow all around her, weighing on her already heavy eyelids, crushing her into the mattress. A sharp pain started to make its way through her chest, sliding down her rib cage as the droplets of sweat in between her breasts.

“Hel...” Her body battled under the covers, trying to escape the fire finger tracing patterns over her chest.

Suddenly she was falling, flames and shadows dancing around her as she hit the ground on her knees.

_There’s too much smoke._

The black shadows of the fire were spiralling around her, leaving her in a cloud of invisible smoke, the air surrounding her turning thinner and thinner as she helplessly tried to stand on her feet.

On instinct her hands reached for her neck, scratching it as she felt her lungs collapsing. She screamed for help, but nothing came out, not a word not a breath and no one came.

“Ple… Ples…” it felt like her words were just obstructing her throat, silently choking her as they turned into callous hands running down her jaw, her throat, pushing her onto the ground as she gasped for mercy.

If she could just scream if they could just hear her.

But before she could find the strength to try a last cry for help, she was sitting up, fully awake, her chest rising and falling out of control as she tried to take in all the oxygen around her.

No one was choking her, nor there were flames or smoke insight, just bags and blankets, and in the farthest corner of the tent a pair of old battered boots.

_It was just a night mere._

Her blonde bang stuck to her forehead, the tips of her long locks falling over her eyes as she rubbed them. She felt sticky with sweat and even more tired than when she had gone to bed. At least her heartbeat was slowing down, the adrenaline caused by her dream slowly fading away.

The rough hands running over her skin, burning her, hunting her, they had felt so real she could almost still feel them.

_It’s just a memory. No one could hurt her now._

The entrance of the stolen tent was closed by a consumed rug, but even like that the light of incoming day was already creeping in, feeble rays of sunshine running over the exposed skin above her waistband. She preferred to sleep fully dressed, even with her revolver belt holster tied to her side if her back muscles didn’t dissent, but as summer started turning the nights hotter, she had surrendered to at least not wearing shirt and boots. The gun stayed.

The woman threw away her scratchy old blanket, passing a hand through her messy blonde hair as she looked around for something to wear.

Soon she found a black shirt, one of the ones she had used as a pillow during the night. It had a hole in the back with a large stain of dried blood frighteningly close to her spine, but once on it looked in better conditions than in her hands.

The woman opened the entrance of the tent removing the old red rug acting as a makeshift door. Immediately the fresh air of the morning come in, together with the smell of the woods and flowers. The blonde took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she relaxed in the light summer breeze caressing her face and running across her long blonde locks.

She had placed her tent just where the trees of the woods started to thin out, not far from the small town at the bottom of the hill. She could see nearly everything from there, from the main buttered road leading down to the town hall to the newly built station, with its tiny train rails disappearing into the horizon towards east.

There was no cloud in sight, not that it surprised her, it hadn’t rained in weeks and the weather hadn’t given signs of changing. It wouldn’t have been good for the woods nor the economy of the town, killing the farmers' crops and thinning out the trees, but for her kind of job, a nice sun shining over her head wasn’t that much of trouble.

The woman smiled, quickly forgetting about her night mere as she stood up to reach the stream in the clearing behind her tent. As she walked, leaving her boots behind, she relaxed in the tingling feeling of the fresh grass under her feet.

As she reached the flowing water, the woman greeted her horse with a soft pat on its neck.

“Here’s my boy.” She said with a smile as she passed her hand through the horse’s dark grey mane.

The horse was still tied to the tree where she had left it, silently nibbling at the plants of the small clearing. His greyish fur looked puffy after the night and, as soon as it felt the woman’s hand on its neck, he raised its head, turning in her direction.

“Look what I got you Benji.” offered the blonde, putting an apple beneath the horse’s white mouth. The young stallion immediately turned its attention to the fruit, its lips wrinkling as it took it from the blonde’s hand and started crunching it.

The girl gave the horse a last pat on the neck, before kneeling by the stream.

Having more time, she would have loved a dive, the tingling sensation of the cold water over her skin, washing away those rough hands and the sweat. But even if she had the time the water of the stream seemed too low to even properly wash her face.

She could swear that the night before the stream had been two times deeper. Now, as she plunged in her hand, the water wouldn’t even raise enough to fully cover her wrist.

_There’s going to be a storm, a very big one._

That’s how nature worked. It had been too long since the last rain and sooner or later things would have needed to go back to their balance. The direr the woods and mountains nearby Grace State turned, the more the storm would have hit them. And by now the fields around the small town looked not so different from the desert in the southern regions. The blonde just hoped that when the moment would have come, she would have had a better shelter than a stolen confederate tent to hide into.

The woman was quick at freshening herself up, splashing the water over her face and neck, cleaning away the sweet of the night. She also ran a hand through her blonde locks, scratching her scalp with the freezing water, thankful for the shivers it sent down her spine.

As soon as she was done, she freed her horse from the tree it had been tied to, moving him closer to the tent as she disappeared back into it.

It didn’t take long for the woman to tie her long straight hair in a ponytail, her bang dangling over her eyes as she covered her head with an old dusty black cowboy hat. Her boots quickly followed, the metallic spurs on the heels shining in the harsh rays of the Californian sun. Soon she was back out of the tent, red lipstick on as she stretched her arms above her head, making her black shirt rise and expose the small dimples just above her waistband.

She was already finishing her breakfast, moving her last egg from the pan above the fire to the piece of bread in her hands when she started to notice two horses coming in her direction.

The two animals moved nearby the limit of the wood, half-hidden by the shadows of leafy branches above them, but far enough to avoid the trees’ roots and the thorny bushes.

The blonde bit into her loaf of bread as she watched them move closer. The first horse had a dark bay fur, almost black in the shadows cast by the trees. Even its rider was hidden in the shades, his brown large hat covering its eyes, the woman could recognize the curly black hair that popped out beneath it. On the contrary, she couldn’t recognise the boy riding beside him who seemed instead to enjoy the morning light. The kid was riding his young pale mere openly in the tall grass of the slope of the hill, his short brown hair moved by the warm wind coming from the south.

The blonde was quick to finish her meal, standing on her feet as the two riders approached her makeshift camp. The small fire on which she had cooked her breakfast was still burning in between her and the two men, its flames slowly dying out.

The older dark-haired man jumped down from his stallion, a loud clinking metallic sound coming from his spurs as his feet reached the ground. He brushed off the dust from his brown trousers, grinning up at the blonde as he gave her a small bow as greeting.

“Catastrophe.” A bunch of dark curly locks fell in front of his green eyes as he greeted her, his mouth moulded into a smirk as he looked up.

“You look as bright as the summer sun above us my dear.” he mushed, slumping down nearby the woman’s fire, removing his hat with his callous fingers as he rested his back against a rock.

The girl rolled her eyes, well accustomed with the man’s flirting as she sat in front of it, offering him a small pan.

“Is nice to see you too Bellamy, news on that last selling I gave you?” she asked, her eyes jumping in between her sprawled partner to the younger boy still dismounting from his mare at the side of her tent.

“All sold and on its way babe.” he grinned as he cleaned the pan with the hem of his worn-out jacket. The sun had finally reached the top of the trees nearby them and with his hat no longer hiding his eyes Taylor could see the dancing reflections on the fire into the man’s dark brown gaze.

“Told you I could sell everything.” he added, as the little shadows of the leaves above them danced on his face in between his freckles.

“I have to say, the farmer was a bit hesitant about the stains of dry blood, but… hey, a full new working wagon with a horse at that price: he couldn’t resist at the end.”

The man took out a pack of money from his trousers quickly throwing it at the woman, the smell of burned wood and fried eggs still hovering in between them.

“Your part and Tessa’s. No need to thank me for the extra.” he winked blowing her a kiss.

The blonde looked down at the money in her hands, Bellamy wasn’t joking about the extra.

“This is too much. You haven’t sold it for the price we had agreed on.” commented Catastrophe, still counting the bills in her hands.

“And? I sold it for more. Higher the income the better no?” joked the man, his biceps swelling as he scratched the back of his neck, where his messy curls got shorter.

The blonde woman felt like shaking her head, but she knew that Bellamy wouldn’t have understood. They did the things they did to survive, but somehow their survival always seemed to cost someone else’s one.

Catastrophe gave one last glance at the dirty money in her hand, before sticking them into the back of her trousers.

_Who am I to make him moral speeches? We got that carriage spilling the blood of innocents, does it really change anything if Bellamy extorted more money than planned from a farmer? We are what we are._

“Good job Bell.”

_I’m no better._

“The kid?” she asked, finally turning towards the younger boy who came there with Bellamy.

She called him kid, but he clearly wasn’t much younger than her and her partner were, eighteen maybe even twenty, but his smooth chin and his innocent smile made him look like a tall excited child. He had intense brown eyes and was clearly holding himself from talking as they went over business, fiddling with the buttons of his white shirt as children would do on Christmas’ Eve.

“Oh right!” remembered Bellamy, a hand already extended towards Catastrophe as the waited for an egg to cook.

“I found him down in a pub in Abbeville, he tried to steal my wallet.” The man cracked out laughing at that.

“Then I offered him a bear and he’s ready Cat! He told me of a bunch of hits he did in his town, he has a good hand, trust me.”

The blonde woman tilted her head, looking over at the browned hair boy as he shined her a bright smile.

 _He’s so young._ She thought _,_ doubt clouding her bright blue eyes.

_He should be running in the fields with his friend, stealing apples from his neighbours and making his mother worry about him staying out late at night, not here asking me a job. Asking me this kind of job._

“What’s your name?” she asked standing up, wind brushing one of her blonde locks away from her face.

“Thomas Peters, miss!” he replied quickly, sounding like a little prepared soldier.

“Tom hum? I’m Catastrophe.” she replied, offering him a hand.

“Oh, we’re using made-up names.” he exclaimed raising a brow.

“It’s Night Monkey then.”

The blonde chuckled but hold back from laughing in the kid’s face. Bellamy wasn’t so well behaved and immediately burst out laughing.

“Night what?” asked the older man as he restarted the fire for his breakfast.

“Well I… I always stole during the night.” explained the boy, sounding less sure than before.

“It’s okay.” reassured him Catastrophe.

“You stole during the night because you needed the cover of darkness. We will cover you from now on.”

The woman saw realization going through the young man’s features.

“So, I’m in?” he asked, a sparkle of excitement in his eyes.

_He’s so young._

“You’re in.” Catastrophe bit on her lip and making up a smile she shook Tom’s hand.

_No younger than I was._

The boy seemed happy with that answer and kept thanking her as he went to seat on a rock nearby Bellamy.

“We’re brothers now kid, welcome to the pack!” joked the browned-eyes man giving him a heavy pat of the shoulders.

“And now, breakfast!” he immediately added breaking two of eggs Catastrophe gave him on the pan.

The woman left them alone, sitting away on a wide log that gave on the town below them.

Grace State was shining in the rays of the morning sun, small dark spots making their way through the town’s main road. One of those spots was probably the sheriff, walking around with its loaded gun at his side, his goatee still covered in crumbs from whatever he had for breakfast. Some of those spots could have lost their lives that day, or maybe not, they didn’t know yet, they couldn’t know.

_You can’t see a catastrophe coming until it hits you._

The woman looked down at her hands, her short nails and the scars made by her horse’s reins. There was a time were her hands and been soft and delicate, her nails long and polished.

 _A pretty naïve girl with her pretty naïve nails._  

She too hadn’t been aware of the catastrophes coming at her.

_Those times are gone._

“Cat!” Bellamy called her from behind, his voice happy and altered by the bread and eggs in his mouth.

The woman turned around her blue eyes sheltered by the sun thanks to her black cowboy hat.

Another horse was coming in their direction, a young chestnut mare with a dark brown mane. The woman on its back was riding at a fast pace, the Winchester on her back swaying with her body.

She only slowed down as she approached Catastrophe’s makeshift camp, a big smile on her face as more of her guns and equipment came into view.

“Boss!” she greeted, throwing a military greeting in Cat’s direction.

The blonde replied, happy to see her friend. Tessa’s dark skin shine with almost golden reflections beneath the Californian’s sun, her wavy black hair barely reaching her shoulders as they flicked in the warm dry wind.

“Everyone’s ready? She asked, her horse pawing the ground beneath her, eager as she was.

_As always._


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Really short chapter, just to remind you that I'm alive. After getting my bachelor degree I've started studying in a new Uni and in a new city, so I'm still trying to get used to all the changes. Nevertheless, I hope to be more constant with the updates! Next chapter THE ANGST is coming ;) Hope you enjoy!

The air felt hot against the skin of her exposed neck and collarbones, the summer’s breeze blowing the taste and the red sand of the desert in her face. The few locks of hair that had escaped the bun beneath her hat stuck to the skin of her neck, as a warm drop of sweat made its way beneath the collar of her blue tailored jacket.

She had never felt more out of place.

_You did, but that was a lifetime ago._

The busy town looked much smaller than what she had remembered. When she was a kid, she recalled spending whole days up and down the main road of Grace Town never stopping or getting bored. Now that place seemed almost too small for her. She could see the town limits with her own eyes, both on her left where the train rail ended and both on her right were squinting her eyes, she could see the buildings thin out and the farmland start.

Karlie tightened her hold on the handle of the leather bag she was holding, standing still in between all the hustling passengers of the train, pacing around her as they scrambled out of the wagons and went looking for their baggage or relatives waiting for them.

The woman was so deep in thought that she didn’t even notice the little boy looming around her.

“Miss, miss.”

Karlie looked down at the kid, at his messy black hair, the freckles hidden by filth and reddish dust.

“Shoe cleaner, one dollar.” he exclaimed, hinting at the elegant leather shoes she was wearing, a greasy rack already in his small callous hands.

For a second she was back in time, nearby the saloon not so far from there, a greasy sponge in her hand as she shouted prices at the strangers walking by. She hadn’t much free time working at the manor, but there she had been paid in nothing by food and accommodation and she had needed money.

_“What you need the money for, kid?” an old traveller from the North had asked her, a foreign accent flavouring his words._

_“A present, for my best friend.” She had replied already at work on the man shoes._

“Miss?” the kid asked again, a hand on his hip as he sent her an annoyed look. If she wasn’t interested other hypothetical clients were walking around the small station.

“Fifteen dollars if you bring my bags to the hostel.” the woman replied, immediately winning back the boy’s attention.

“Yes Miss, thank you Miss!” he immediately started bubbling.

“You can find them in the last wagon. Here’s the ticket.” Karlie handed out to the boy a small piece of paper, the one she had been given back at the station where she had taken the train, and when she had given in her baggage.

“Also, when you get there book a room for Karlie Kloss. I have some business going on in town, I don’t know how long it will take.”

“Sure thing Miss Kloss, thank you.”

Karlie gave him a five bill, a crooked smile making its way on her lips as she watched the boy’s eyes shine with happiness.

“The rest when you get the work down.” She added.

The boy nodded, the shoe cleaning rag forgot in his trousers as he ran towards the end of the train, the money and the ticket in his closed little fist.

By the time the boy had disappeared from the woman’s view the station had grown quieter, the last passengers flowing into the small town. Some were carrying their bags, some had nothing but their used train ticket with them, it was clear who was there for business and who was there as a last resource.

She could already feel some eyes on her.

A woman in men’s clothes, a woman’s in tailored men’s clothes. Was that gold shining on her cufflinks?

Karlie cleared her throat, taking a first step towards the station exit: a large rusty gate. Small tufts of drained yellow grass grew in between the tiled floor nearby the train track, sweeping the red dust away from her shoes when she walked among them. On her right she could see what looked like an office, the only building within the station, but it looked abandoned and as the gate in front of her. Dying bushes grew here and there, giving her an idea of how many trains reached that forgotten land.

The woman put the strap of her leather bag on her shoulder, slowly walking out of the station as she left the solid concrete floor behind her. The main road of Grace State was nothing but pressed earth with a thin layer of red sand brought by the wind covering it all.

As soon as she was out from the rusty gate, she started recognising the buildings around her. It was as the whole town had been frozen in time.

Right in front of her there was the old town hall, with its ruined red and blue flag dangling from its balcony. The wood of the porch looked ruined and close to breaking, but the doorsteps leading to it were still covered in a nice red carpet and the black closed door on the front looked like it had just been repainted. The windows on the first floor were opened and long blue curtains hung in the inside.

Karlie wondered if Mr Benson was still in charge. She remembered him vividly, his neat black hair, so similar to the ones of his older daughter Elinor, as he played with his younger daughter, nothing but an infant at the time, on that same porch.

Karlie squinted her eyes looking up into the opened windows, but all she could see were the long blue curtains moved by the warm wind coming from the south.

The woman turned to her right, walking through the busiest part of the town. Swarms of people were walking around her, some busy in some kind of activities, carrying boxes or wheelbarrows others just looking for the first pint of the day. Even so, she couldn’t but feel the town as empty. Maximum thirty people were walking down the street, and maybe another twenty inside the pub on her right. Some of them looked already drunk, other as they had never been sober in days. No one there seemed interested in meeting her gaze, but she could feel her eyes on them. They all knew each other in small towns like that, she could too have probably recognised some of those faces if she had looked closer. There was a kid with who she used to have mud wars, he now was seated in front of the pub’s porch spitting on the red sand, a dark messy beard growing all over the features Karlie had once known. Even the little girl who had lived in the farm next to Mrs Swift grape hill was there, leaning onto the pub’s door as her dark brown eyes ran over Karlie’s elegant suit.

The woman raised her gaze meeting Karlie’s green eyes, who for a second alt her steps, a veil of acknowledgement running through her.

“Seeing something you like?” smiled back the woman nearby the pub entrance.

“I could make a good price for an angel face like that.” She continued running her long fingers over the porch’s balcony, clearing trying to seduce the newcomer.

The woman’s corset was far more loosen than what Karlie had originally thought and as the girl bent over the railing separating them quite nothing was left to the imagination.

Karlie shook her head, immediately walking away as whispers and chuckled erupted behind her.

They had no idea of who she was. Just one of the rare strangers passing by.

And if she had to be sincere, she was starting to feel like one.


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long wait for a long chapter. Enjoy and let me know your thoughts in the comments!

As the sound of laughs and the tingling smell of alcohol started to fade behind her, Karlie reached the town’s bank. The white Victorian construction had a large and overly decorated façade as people walked up and down the steps leading to its opened door. Five horses were tied at the drinking trough in front of it, lazily waiting for their owners in the midday sun. The town looked busier in that area as people walked in and out of the bank, who also acted as a post office. Just one man was standing still, his back resting against the white wooden wall nearby the main entrance. His tailored clean clothes immediately caught Karlie’s eyes, he was wealthier than the other passers-by, a large golden pin shining from over his chest.

_Fancy clothes for a small town’s sheriff._

The man had his hair and beard cut too short for her to make out the colour, but as she passed, her steps uncertain, she could feel his bored following on her. The woman gave him a nod as a greeting, halting her steps as she brought her hand to her hat. He replied with a spit in the red sand at her feet, not sparing her a second gaze as he walked inside the bank.

 _What a warm welcome._ She thought, diverting her eyes.

She had met men like that, ready to despite you just of because of what you were wearing or your general attire. Maybe in Philadelphia, her male clothing would have just drawn some whispers, but she should have known that things would have been different in a small town like Grace State.

Maybe that was the habitual welcome the sheriff gave to stranger it wouldn’t have been too surprising. She knew that town’s like that didn’t usually reserve a too warm welcome to strangers, especially to those who came from the north. Even she hadn’t opened her mouth, her clothes and the thick drops of sweat running down her neck where a clear enough sign. 

Not that the sheriff’s opinion mattered. She wasn’t planning to stay there for too long, was she?

A few meters ahead Karlie could see the hostel, a tall building than stood out from all the others in town, with tall green painted wooden walls and an old yellow sign hanging over the entry. The place looked cleaner than the brothel she had just passed, and even if a couple of inebriated looking man stood on the covered porch they were just happily chatting with the barmaid, a young woman with short, messy brunette hair. For a second the woman seemed to be looking in her direction, but before Karlie could focus on the greyish blue gaze the girl had already diverted her eyes on the jug of beer in between her hands, rising it in a cheerful shout. The two men at her side were quick to follow, one of them nearly tripping backwards in the act. The girl held him by the neck shirt making him steady as they both burst out laughing.

She had been so fixated on her mission, or whatever that journey was, that she had barely noticed the people she came across till then, families giggling together on the train, friends chuckling in the waiting rooms of the station. The woman gave a last glance to the group of friends as she followed the street. She knew well that she would have come there later, but she also knew that she wouldn’t have been a friend, a known face, someone the barmaid would have shared a beer with and make small talk to.

For the first time since her father died, she felt truly alone. Which was funny thinking that she had made all that road to find someone, to find a home.

_But there is no one here waiting for you._

As she walked her leather case kept swaying up and down at her side, her few most important belongings in it. She wondered who she would have been if she and her father had never left. A co-worker of the loud innkeeper? One of the sweaty looking countrymen selling their goods in town? One of the desperate figures she saw dragging their feet into the back, begging for a loan? Once she would have sworn that if she had stayed, she would have certainly still worked at the Swift manor, maybe taking her father’s place in the stables. But even the girl she saw at the brothel worked at the manor, and it didn’t seem it had ended too good for her. Maybe the civil war had hit Mr Swift business more than she had imagined.

_What do you know after all? This is not your home, not in a long time._

But as much she repeated that to herself not even the thought of the tall buildings and the busy streets of Philadelphia gave her the sensation she was looking for.

A warm soft embrace in which she could hide, a fainting smell, too sweet to be the one of the oranges she linked to her mother’s memories, but at the same time too strong and vivid to be the delicate smell of vines and earth she associated with the white manor’s gardens.

Did she even ever have a real home?

The sun was still shining above her, sending bursts of heat along the woman’s body as she tugged at the collar of her shirt. She was looking forward to the sun to set, finally having the chill of the night cooling her down and the comfort of a bed beneath her. She was tired as she had never been in the last years of her life and she hadn’t slept in something more comfortable than a train seat in days, but she couldn’t have waited longer.

All that road, all the time it took, she wouldn’t have been able to spend another night without knowing the truth. She knew that it wasn’t rational and that she had no reason to be there. What if Taylor didn’t miss her? What if she had just got bored of her and forgot of her childhood friend?

_For years I had been nothing but a pen friend, not much more than an imaginary one if you think of it. And everyone knows what happens with imaginary friends when the time comes._

Karlie felt her body quiver, she had no idea of what she was doing.

_Maybe it’s just the trauma of losing my father. Maybe I’m not able to let him go, to let go of this country and my subconscious found a way to make me believe that I had to do this._

_But you promised._

Karlie let out a deep breath, trying to ignore the battle going on in her head as she kept walking under the curious gaze of the town. She was there, it was too late for afterthoughts.

The more she distanced herself from the town’s centre the more she could feel the soil underneath her feet getting uneven. Wooden houses rose on both side of the road, so small in comparison to the bank or the hostel that they looked more like stables than actual houses. Some of them looked abandoned, others had clothes hanging from the windows and goats grazing the yellowish bushes growing here and there.

Barefoot kids run around freely, their clothes worn out and oversized. As they ran and play their feet lifted the red sand covering the ground, getting attention from some of the goats while others stayed unbothered. Karlie smiled towards them, remembering well when it was her little feet the ones running around that same street, Taylor fast on her heels. Even if she had been younger Karlie had always been the quicker one.

The hill with the white manor wasn’t far, and she could remember clearly the two of them running in between the vineyard to reach that very same road as they venture in town. The memory was printed in her mind: the smell of earth and mud in her lungs, Taylor, her puffy white gown, running after her, the girl’s curls all over her flushed face as she tried to keep up with her.

Karlie chuckled to herself wondering if Taylor was fond of those memories too. Maybe when she would have reached the manor they could have had a tea together, chatting about the past, remember their foolish games and their mischiefs.

_I would like that._

She had never thought of what she would have told Taylor when she would have had her before her eyes. It was already hard just to imagine that: her soft face deprived of the childish fat, her innocent blue eyes, her signature pout, now coloured with pricey lipsticks. But a tea, maybe in the garden beneath their tree, the thought alone brought a smile to her lips.

By the time she had left the town her black leather shoes were covered in reddish dust. The twenty-four-year-old could tell that it hadn’t rained in days, but nevertheless, the weather didn’t give any sign of changing soon. As Karlie kept moving underneath the clear blue sky, she felt glad for the cowboy hat covering her eyes.

There were no longer businessmen or drunk men crossing her path, neither ridiculously undressed women. The people around her were too busy driving their carts or moving overflowing wheelbarrows to spare a gaze towards the well-dressed stranger. Karlie could see the strain painted on their faces, the drops of sweat running over their features, she knew how it felt.

Those were memories from long ago, but she remembered the burn of muscles, the shivers running down her legs as she climbed into her bed in the evening. Her thumb instinctively ran over the smooth palm of her hand, feeling the small invisible scars long ago vanished callous had left.

Before she was ready, she was in front of a well know crossroad. A small path leading to an opened gate waited for her on the left, the gate too far from the girl for her to notice the rust covering it, while on her right, on the other side of a small wooded area, the path looked larger and more used. If she turned left, she would have reached the white manor main entrance, the one used by distinguished guests and Mr Swift himself, on the right instead the wider path was for carriages and workers and ran through the Swift family’s vineyards and crop fields.

Maybe she wanted to relive long-forgotten memories or maybe deep down she still felt that skinny, stable’s man daughter, not someone who should have come by the main entrance and so Karlie turned right, following the large path that ran along the dried-out wood fending the white manor from view.

While at her left grew bushes and the dying wood on the left side there was nothing but what looked like endless fields. If at a first glance that landscape looked nothing but a yellow desert of bushes, the more she looked the more Karlie could see. There were orange spots here and there, where the desert had already taken its victory, or even green spots, where fat cactus grew in between the arid landscape. It was way different than the green fields she remembered, and even if the view was nothing but majestic, the yellow ground meeting the bright blue sky, she couldn’t but feel a veil of sadness sinking upon her.

Without giving any more thoughts to the drought afflicting what had once been her home, the took a turn into the core of the white manor’s plantation leaving the view, and the endless fields behind her.

She hadn’t met anyone since she had taken the crossroad, and now that she was starting to walk in which once was Mr Swift crops it started to feel odd not having anyone around. She remembered how those fields used to swarm with life, workers chatting with one another, children running after a lost goat of sheep, strong muscular horses dragging ploughs or overstuffed carriages.

The fields hadn’t survived the draught and where once grew corn and cereals there was nothing but arid reddish sand and dry out shrubs. Some goats roamed in between them, unfazed by the solitary strangers walking on the path beside them.

_Maybe Mr Swift switched to the breeding business._

Though she could count less than twenty goats, so even if that was the case the business hadn’t turned out better than the crop one.

Karlie kept walking, barely recognising the fields in which she had spent her childhood days. Those fields had been green and fruitful, wet mud getting stuck to her feet as she ran through them while the singing and shouts of the workers followed her around, their callus rough hands giving her heavy pats on the back when she stopped to talk to them.

Now there was nothing, but dried bushes and the dull jingling of the bells attached to the goats’ collars.

The woman halted her steps recognising the vineyard, or what was left of it. The wooden structures were still there, some forgotten onto the ground others still standing well anchored to the arid soil. Stems as thin as strings still ran from one wooden pole to another, twirling around the structures and looking as alive as one of those serpent skins you could find on the ground in spring.

For a second Karlie almost felt like crying, that wasn’t her home, it was clear to her, but so many of her memories were attached to that place, it felt as she was losing everything she thought she knew. What had been of Taylor in that desolated place?

The girl shook her head, ready to take back the path leading up the hill and to their tree when she noticed that now that she vineyard had turned in nothing but an empty field, she could see the stables on the other side of it.

The woman walked across the bare land, ignoring the cracking sound of the dried soil beneath her leather boots, but as she reached the stable there was nothing there to comfort her.

The wooden walls looked as they were about to crumble, windows and doors broken or missing. The second floor beneath the roof, where she had used to sleep with her father, probably no longer existed, crumbled down as the balance beams she could see on the floor from the entrance.

The place looked abandoned.

Her heart gave her a sharp pain, making her bring her free hand to her chest. It looked like Mr Swift had lost all his wealth, giving up on his business and his workers. Karlie bit her lip, wondering if that was the reason Taylor had stopped writing her, did she maybe felt too ashamed of asking her for help?

Almost unconsciously Karlie turned around, turning away from the stables as she started walking along the main path leading up the main entrance of the manor, the one she could have taken before at the crossroad.

Small pebbles scraped against each other below her shoes, as she slowly walked up the hill. She was almost there when something hit her.

The white manor should have already been into view.

For a second she stood still, in utter confusion. Did she take the wrong road? Was this another hill she had forgotten about? Maybe the manor was on another one.

But her memories were as clear as the greyish pebbles beneath her leather boots, and with a lump in her throat, Karlie kept walking towards the top of the hill, a turmoil inside her head and her heart.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she found.

She couldn’t have said that is was as the manor had never been there because it was clear that it had been. Some walls still stood, she could recognise the kitchen on her left, the furniture as black as the night sky but still recognisable.

The soil was grey under her boots as if the ashes of the fire never truly left. She took a step forward, breaking some of the wooden beams that had fallen from the no longer existing roof.

Karlie could feel nothing but the sound of her heartbeat ringing in her hears, looking around completely lost as she tried to put into words what happened there.

_A fire._

A fire had burned everything she knew down.

Karlie walked among the few walls who had survived the flames, wondering as something so clean and white could have blackened so much. Some bushes grew here and there in between the ruins, indicated that some time had passed since the fire occurred.

The girl found herself where the sitting room should have been, three of the four walls were still up and in some points she could still make out the floral wallpaper that had once covered them. The oak table that had been in the middle of the room had vanished and something remained of the couches. The leather had turned black and what was left had been covered in the glasses of the room’s windows after they exploded.

Pieces of glass cracked under her leather boots as she looked around. The was no roof above her, only a small part of it hadn’t collapsed just above the main hallway, but Karlie’s wouldn’t have risked walking beneath it. The outer walls of the manor, the white refined Victorian façade had turned in nothing but thin air, and the ashes she was now walking onto.

Maybe the Swift family had moved out and burned the house to take it down. But as much as she looked for common objects, like clothes, paintings, signs that the family still had been there when the tragedy occurred, she couldn’t find a part of the house who had withstand the flames.

 “They’ve already taken everything, nothing left for you stranger.”

Karlie jumped at the voice, immediately turning towards the sound.

An old man was seated on a rock just outside from the ruins of the house, his back towards the girl as he looked down from the hill.

“What do you mean?” she asked walking out of the ashes. It almost felt as she could still smell the smoke coming up from them.

“Outlaws, criminals, poor things just looking for something to make it to the end of the month. Whatever was left by the fire got taken by looters as soon as the flames died down.”

Karlie reached the man, meeting his hollow gaze, pretty sure that he couldn’t see much of her.

“It’s a good place to bring my goats. No kids messing around.” He added, sliding on the rock so that the girl could seat at his side.

Karlie thanked him, only then noticing the goats grazing around them.

“For how long the house had been abandoned?” she asked, the soft wind hitting the top of the hill stroking through the few loose locks of her blonde air. She could almost see the faraway railroad from there.

“Almost twelve years.” Reasoned the man.

When Taylor sent me her last letter.

Maybe the girl had moved away from Grace State and in the chaos of the relocation, she had lost her address.

_Or she forgot about you._

Karlie looked down at her hands, resting her face in between them as she put her leather case onto the ground.

_I came here for nothing._

Taylor could have been anywhere by then, leaving the big life somewhere in Louisiana or running after a tram in a city of the west coast.

“You wouldn’t know where the family living here went, right?” she asked.

That would have been her last shot, the last chance she would have given to this foolish adventure of hers before taking a train back to Philadelphia. There were plans for her there, a transatlantic ferry ready to bring her to a new world, a new life.

Karlie raised her green gaze, meeting the watery eyes of the old wrinkled man. His skin looked almost bronzed, with freckles and moles sprinkled across his forehead. He wore an oversized red shirt that looked as old as he was. He had probably worked in the fields, reasoned Karlie, she could see the signs of the wide chest and shoulders he had probably once had, but as time passed his strength as well as his sight had slipped away from him.

A goat bleat beside them, taking the man’s attention away from the girl beside him.

“Did you know them?” he asked tentatively, without looking at her.

Karlie turned as well towards the landscape ahead of her. Resignation was running threw her, almost as a warm heavy blanket soothing you into sleep, but she didn’t want to sleep. An acid sensation of guilt ran up her throat. She should have done something earlier, she should have come visit, it was her fault if she had lost all contacts with the only true real friends she had ever had.  The arid empty vineyard stretched below them at the bottom of the hill, goats roaming through it as the wind sent send into the girl’s eyes. She could also see their tree, its stripped branched protracting towards the sky.

“I used to work here.” she replied, a veil of sadness altering her voice.

“But it feels like a lifetime ago. Everything looks so… different.” She added breathing in, but the smell of vines and mud was gone forever, replaced by the one of the desert and the hint of smoke coming from the ashes behind them.

The man followed her gaze, running his eyes over the fields where the crop had used to grow.

“I get you’ve been away for quite a long, kid.” He muttered, but Karlie could feel some kind of sadness in his voice too, something close to the sensation she had felt as she had looked at the arid landscape.

Karlie nodded.

_So long…_

“After Mr Swift died, things changed.”

Karlie froze at those words. The generous, prodigal Mr Swift had died, the man who, after her father, she could say have risen her. She didn’t need to ask how she already knew the answer.

_War._

“He never came back.” She completed, remembering Taylor’s words in the last letter she sent her.

The old man nodded chewing on something that smelled like tobacco.

Karlie closed her eyes, holding back the tears forming there. She felt guilty, everything had felt apart, the family who had once been her home had gone torn apart and she hadn’t been there. Mr Swift had always been there for her: when her mother had died, they had given her and her father a place to stay, work for her father and a roof above their head, she owned them her life. But the moment they could have needed her the most she hadn’t been there.

_You were just a kid._

Karlie clenched her teeth, trying to hold back all her feelings.

_You wouldn’t have made a difference._

Rationally she knew that she couldn’t have done anything.

_You wouldn’t have stopped Mr Swift from going to the battlefront or you wouldn’t have stopped that bullet._

_But you could have been there for them… for her._

Karlie breathed in, quietly thanking the old man for keeping his gaze away. It was a hard fight but as last she gulped down the pain, bringing her head up as she nodded.

Mr Swift was a good man, and she knew that he had lived his life at the best of the chances. For how short as it was, he had a good life.

Karlie looked at the man beside her, silence surrounding them as he left her time to grieve.

After her father’s death, Taylor and her mother must have moved away, it would have been impossible for them to keep up with the man’s business thought Karlie, or maybe just too painful. Those vineyards, their very same house, everything would have reminded them of him, the girl wasn’t surprised that they moved away.

“Where did the rest of the family went? Mrs Swift and her daughter?”

The man cleared his throat, but as he talked his voice sounded as raspy as it did before.

“At the bottom of the hill, there, near the big oak tree.”

Karlie raised her brow, maybe the man hearing was tainted too.

“I asked if you know where they went.” She repeated.

“It was a bad fire, kid.”

Karlie wasn’t following, but the man didn’t seem interested in giving her more explanation as he gave one last meaningful gaze.

The girl rose on her feet.

 Her head felt like spinning, but she ignored it as something deep inside her was screaming unheard.

_I can maybe find answers in town._

Yes, that was rational. She thought nodding to herself, a lump growing in her throat.

She could have gone go to the town hall, they must have kept a register or something. There had to be a way for her to find out where Taylor and her mom went.

She thanked the man for his words, to which he didn’t reply and, as his eyes followed her, she started walking down the hill, arid soil and bushes all around her.

_We used to roll down this hill, grass staining our clothes._

She thought, as a not so different sensation from the one she had as a kid rolling down the hill shook her head. Everything was quick and unstable as the world kept spinning around her. She had to keep walking, she had to reach the town, some sort of panic was going on beneath her chest, but her mind was still ignoring it, not ready for what her heart had already understood.

Something inside her was off, the man’s word had twisted something deep inside her, but she just couldn’t understand what it was.

As she kept walking towards town, she also got closer to their tree. It was still alive, but Karlie didn’t think it would have survived much longer. The oak tree had lost all his foliage, and his branches looked as pale and rickety arms begging towards the sky.

_It needs water._

Karlie looked down at his roots, wondering how much water it would have needed, she could clearly remember a well not far from there. But her thoughts were suddenly interrupted as she noticed a small white fence around the tree.

For some reason the view sent a shiver down her bones and, puzzled, she started walking towards it, barely registering her legs moving.

It didn’t take long for her to realize that it wasn’t a fence.

_What…_

The two crosses stood one next to the other, their white paint glistening in the rays of the midday sun.

Karlie’s breath stopped.

In that moment there was no sun above her, no sweat running down her skin, no leather case in her hands which fell to the ground forgotten, scattering the letters on the arid soil.

At the bottom of the hill, near that big tree.

Karlie’s knees gave in beneath her, her whole body shaking as she fully understood the man’s words.

There she was. Her childhood friend, the girl who made her cross the country for a fifteen-year-old promise, the golden girl whose memories still sent butterflies to Karlie’s stomach.

Right there in front of her. Below the white chipped cross, below the arid soil where Karlie’s tears were falling, so close, but at the same time far a distance Karlie could not even start to grasp.

Pain was cutting through her heart as the blade who had engraved those words in the cross in front of her eyes, her fingers reaching desperately for those letters.

_Taylor Alison Swift._


End file.
